


Reaching the River

by Ruusverd



Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [11]
Category: Echoes of the Fall - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25896883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd
Summary: The footsore warband finally reaches the river and negotiates with the Horse Society for passage to the north. Geralt hears some disturbing news from the south. Jaskier tries to make a new friend, with indifferent success.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863010
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	Reaching the River

**Author's Note:**

> Alladai is a background character borrowed from Echoes of the Fall because I needed a Horse person for Geralt to talk to and I’m too lazy to make my own OC. Or maybe it’s a different Horse person and they just have the same name, who knows?

Ciri had decided the moment she laid eyes on the Tsotec river for the first time that it was her new favorite thing, simply because it meant the end of all the walking. Or rather, she amended, her favorite thing besides her wolf amulet and the little bronze knife Geralt was letting her borrow.

She thought she probably didn’t like it as much as Cahir did, though. As soon as they’d gotten close enough to see the river in its bed Cahir had taken off running with a wild shout and done a very funny-looking dive into the water. For over an hour they’d seen nothing but the eyes and nostrils of his Stepped form poking above the surface. Ciri wasn’t ready to forgive him for Xin'trae, for him tying her up and trying to take her to the Kasra, but it was hard to be scared of someone once you’d seen them act so silly.

While Cahir had enjoyed his return to the water, Geralt had gone to barter passage for them with the Horse man in charge of the boats. The man’s name was Alladai, and apparently Geralt had met him before. Geralt said the man was some sort of distant cousin of Plotka’s, though Jaskier had retorted that _all_ the Horse Society seemed to be "some sort of distant cousin" to each other, even the ones who weren't related at all. Jaskier, uninterested in listening to Geralt talk business, wandered off to talk to some of the other Horse people. Ciri was nervous around so many strangers and hung on to Geralt’s arm. Lem stayed close as well, though she stayed at arm's reach so she could maintain the pretense that the Hyena felt no fear of anything.

"Alladai!" Geralt called, waving a greeting with his free hand. The Horse man looked up and smiled at him, waving him over to sit at his fire. Ciri sat pressed against Geralt’s side as close as she could get without actually crawling into his lap.

"White Wolf! I expected you would not be far behind when I spotted your Crow friend a moment ago! Where is our Plotka?"

"She's gone to tell your herd who is the greatest of the Horse," Geralt smiled back, though Ciri thought their smiles looked sad.

"What brings you to us, my friend?"

"I need passage to the Crown of the World for five people, six including Plotka, with as much discretion as possible. And a message sent south, if you have a messenger who can be trusted absolutely."

Ciri saw the Horse man’s eyes narrow a bit, though he was still smiling. "I will not accept payment for Plotka, as she is family to me. I will give the five of you passage as far as our post at the edge of the Many Mouths’ territory in exchange for your help in guarding the convoy. Discretion is a harder matter."

Geralt nodded, "I would not ask you or your people to lie, but if you could remain silent about us unless directly asked, particularly in the south, that would satisfy me."

Alladai gazed at the fire thoughtfully, "My hand-father would say that to promise you such discretion would be to side with you against the south, and if it were anyone else but you and the south in question I would agree. But in this case I say that bringing news of you to the south would be to side with them against you. The Horse Society has friends in all places and favors none above the other, but the Sun River Nation has made friendship difficult for us lately."

“How so?” Geralt frowned in concern.

“They make no secret of the fact that they take issue with our neutrality. They say we trade with Emhyr Kasra’s enemies. Well, of course we do! We also trade with his friends. What do they think neutrality means? It means we trade with everyone. But some of us think they resent not only our neutrality, but our independence as well.”

"Is that why you're hiring guards from outside? I've never known the Horse to need them."

"It is true, generally we don’t need any protection but our own bows, but recently we have had far too many raids by the Dragon's river pirates, even in waters where they have never been before."

"And you think the Sun River Nation is behind it?" Geralt’s voice didn’t change, but Ciri could feel him tensing where she was leaning against him. She didn’t blame him. After the destruction of the Xin’trae, she never wanted to see a Dragon again.

"The thought occurs to us that the Dragon owes at least nominal allegiance to the Kasra. This thought occurs to us more strongly when the Kasra sends messengers to the elders offering to place his soldiers in our convoys to protect us from the Dragons, if only we agree to stop trading with his enemies."

Lem burst into a cackling laugh, startling Ciri, who hadn’t noticed she was there. “This Kasra is a more clever trader than even the Horse! He cuts off his enemies’ trade, puts his warriors in among your people, and gets you to bow your heads for the privilege all at the same time!”

Alladai nodded, “That is what we think as well. That once his soldiers were among us it would be but a short time before we were thralls of the Sun River Nation in all but name.Then everyone would fear to act against him for the same reason they fear to act against us: fear that we will cut off their trade. Everyone depends on things they can’t make themselves, to one degree or another. But our neutrality also decrees that until we have actual evidence that the pirates are acting under orders from Atahlan we can’t openly confront them. So in the meantime, we hire extra guards.”

“We’d be happy to help in exchange for our passage,” Geralt said. Ciri almost wished he’d refused, even if it meant more walking. She didn’t want to go on a boat if there was a chance they’d get attacked by dragons again.

“That is settled then! And the other matter, the message?”

“I need it sent to the Snake priestess Yennefer Essen Venger at the temple in Atahlan.”

The Horse man looked confused, “Are you sure she’s in Atahlan? The only priests of the Serpent still there after the schism are the ones most devoted to Emhyr Kasra. I wouldn’t send a message to anyone there if I was hoping to escape his notice.”

Geralt no longer tried to hide his tension, “What are you talking about? What schism?”

“The Serpent has two heads in Atahlan about Emhyr Kasra, they say,” the Horse man said, holding his hands palm-up as if comparing the weight of two invisible objects. He raised his right hand and lowered the left, “One head says the Kasra is making the Sun River Nation strong, and is therefore spreading the Snake’s fabled wisdom through all the world,” he reversed the position of his hands, “while the other says the Kasra is blinded to all wisdom by his own ambition and will destroy the peoples of the south with his wars.” He shrugged, “The Snakes that formed the head against the Kasra have all left Atahlan, though I’ve not heard from a reliable source if they left voluntarily or if they were driven out.”

Ciri looked at Geralt worriedly. She hoped his Snake friend wasn’t one of the priests that wanted the Kasra to win. That would hurt Geralt terribly. And the priestess was the one who was supposed to make sure Ciri got her wolf soul.

“I don’t suppose you know where they went?” Geralt looked grim.

“Some went to ground in the estuaries, some went farther south than even the Sun River Nation. Maybe some came north, I don’t know. I don’t know any of them by name to say who may have gone where.”

Geralt rubbed his face and sighed, “In that case I suppose I don’t have a message to send after all. Yennefer certainly wouldn’t approve of what the Kasra’s doing, and she wouldn’t be shy about saying so.”

Geralt and Alladai then started talking about people from the Horse Society that Ciri didn’t know, though Geralt seemed distracted and worried. Lem nudged her with her elbow, looking gleeful as always. "The Crow is attempting a mating dance I think," she said to Ciri in an undertone.

Ciri turned to look where Lem was pointing and saw Jaskier speaking animatedly to a woman with strange yellow-brown hair hacked off raggedly just below her ears and a powerful bow over her shoulder. It didn’t look to Ciri like he was trying to flirt. If he _was_ flirting it wasn’t working, the woman looked like she was about to bite his head off. Ciri couldn’t recognize by looking what people she belonged to.

"Who's that?" she asked Geralt abruptly, then flushed with embarrassment when she realized she'd interrupted trading-talk. She wasn’t shy about inserting herself into adults’ conversations in general, but she’d always been taught on no uncertain terms not to interrupt trading-talk.

Alladai didn’t seem offended. He just smiled and told her, "That's Milva, of the Hawk."

"A woman of the Eyrie? Here?" Geralt looked over his shoulder at the woman in surprise.

Alladai nodded, "I don't know if she's an exile or a runaway, and it makes no difference to us. She's been helping us guard our cargo up and down the river for a few weeks now." His brow creased, "Dandelion-Seeds-Floating won't cause problems for her, will he?"

Ciri's face scrunched in confusion, not sure how someone like Jaskier could cause problems for someone like Milva. She was obviously stronger than he was. Lem was only half-grown and _she_ was probably stronger than Jaskier.

Geralt shook his head, "He has little love for the Eyrie and it’s traditions himself. He won't make a fuss about it, unless it's to praise her bravery."

Ciri frowned, wondering what they were talking about but not wanting to interrupt again.She looked back over at Jaskier. Most of the defensive tension had left the woman’s posture, and the two seemed to be having a polite if somewhat awkward conversation, judging by their expressions. _It must be hard on Jaskier,_ she thought, _not having any other winged folk to talk to._

Alladai sighed and clapped his hands together briskly, "Well,if our business is settled, get your people togther and let's go get aboard. We're wasting daylight and I want be far upriver from here before dark."

Ciri followed Geralt out to the boat, both nervous and excited about this new way of traveling. Even with the threat of river pirates looming in the back of her mind, it was going to be so nice not to have to walk for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> "Hand-father" or "hand-son" are the terms the Horse Society uses for parent-child relationships formed by buying the kid from another tribe and changing their souls to Horse souls. I don't use it for Geralt and Ciri because it doesn't seem to be the term for an adopted parent in general, as far as I can tell. Not important, but just in case anyone was wondering.


End file.
